Tim Roberts has been a mail carrier for 28 years. He thought he
knew all the dogs along his route in a south Manchester neighborhood.
But one day last October, Roberts was putting mail in a mailbox
when a dog “came out of nowhere,” he said.
“It came around the side of the house. It wasn’t barking or anything. The first time I realized something, it was biting my leg.”
The dog was an aged basset hound. The owner called it off, and Roberts retreated to his mail truck. “I pulled my pant leg up and I had three bite marks that were bleeding in my leg.”
In the last fiscal year (ending Sept. 30, 2016), 38 postal carriers in New Hampshire were bitten by dogs, according to the U.S. Postal Service. That compares with 32 in Maine and 16 in Vermont.
It was the second time Roberts has been bitten. The first time was years ago in Malden, Mass., where a customer’s tiny dog raised a ruckus every time he delivered the mail.
One day, the dog’s owner declared it was time for them to become friends. “She whipped open the screen door and, before I could do anything, the dog came running up and bit me in the ankle,” he said.
The mortified owner, he said, “was apologizing left and right” — she even made him cookies later.
And the dog? “We didn’t become friends.”
Steve Doherty, northern New England spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said the agency doesn’t track dog bite reports by breed. But it’s not always the ones you’d expect, he said.
“When you think about dog bites, you think about a pit bull chained to a tree in the yard,” he said. But often, “It’s the little dog you wouldn’t expect, or just a dog sleeping in the front yard and the carrier walked by him too closely and startled him.”
Doherty said one problem is a public misconception that, if a dog bites, it’s a “bad” dog. “And everyone thinks, ‘My dog’s not a bad dog. My dog’s never bitten anyone.’”
But he said, “Any dog will bite under the right circumstances, if they feel they’re being protective, or defending themselves. It doesn’t mean they’re a bad dog; that’s what dogs do.”
USPS discourages carriers from bringing along treats for the dogs on their routes, Doherty said. That can cause problems if a substitute carrier shows up without treats, he said.
Years ago, he was covering another carrier’s route in Lexington, Mass., and was halfway up a long staircase to one house. “And a German shepherd came bounding down the stairs toward me.”
“I panicked,” Doherty said. “As he got closer, I had the handful of mail in my hand and I slung my satchel in front of me. And he grabbed the mail out of my hand and ran back up the stairs.”
The next day, he relayed the close call to the regular carrier. “He said, ‘That’s Mike. He always comes down and gets the mail from me.’”
“That would have been good information to have,” Doherty said.
The post office does have a system of warning cards that mail carriers can post to alert others to houses with aggressive dogs or other hazards.
Nick Kerr, acting postmaster in Manchester, said four mail carriers in the city have been bitten by dogs so far this year. Most dog bites are minor, but he’s seen cases that required stitches.
Kerr, who has two dogs of his own, said most dog bites are accidents that could have been prevented with a little vigilance. “Any dog has the potential, and they can be a different dog when there’s a stranger around,” he said.
One common scenario is a child opening the door after a carrier rings the bell to deliver a package. “And the dog will charge out — in protection mode for the family, of course,” Kerr said.
Sometimes, the carrier may deliver a package to the front steps. “And as we’re walking away, the customer opens the door to retrieve it and the dog comes charging out, and we get attacked from behind.”
Kerr is not sure why the old cliche about dogs hating mailmen seems to be true. It could be just the sheer volume of yards and homes they visit every day, he said: A mail carrier walking a route in Manchester may make 500 to 600 deliveries.
Safety training for new carriers includes how to respond to a dog attack. It’s also part of academy training and regular safety meetings, Kerr said.
“It’s something that we bring up often,” he said. “If we have an incident that happens, we share it with everyone, just for more general awareness.”
Mail carriers are trained to use their satchels to ward off an attack. “So if the dog is going to bite, they grab the satchel and they might just be satisfied with that,” Kerr said. “Then it just becomes a close call.”
They also carry pepper spray, but “we use that as a last resort,” he said.
Kerr had his own close call years ago in Nashua. He walked around a corner and “a dog’s standing there, just looking at me,” he said. “Teeth showing. Growling.”
He did what they’re trained to do, putting his satchel in front of him and backing up, while keeping eye contact with the dog. “One thing they tell you is never turn and run because that will incite a response.”
“I slowly backed away and was able to get around the corner and the dog did not pursue,” he said. “I got out of that one.”
Roberts said his bad experiences haven’t made him feel differently about dogs. “I still love dogs,” he said.
But it does make him more aware of the potential hazard. “This old basset hound certainly wasn’t a dog that I would expect to come up and bite someone.”
Roberts urges folks to restrain their dogs when the mailman comes. “Your dog might be the sweetest dog in the world to you, but you have someone come over to your house, you don’t know how a dog is going to react in a different situation,” he said. “Who the dog is going to take as a threat.”
He’s not sure where the animosity some dogs have for postal carriers comes from, but he knows it’s real. Perhaps, he suggested, “It’s someone coming up to the house every day that’s never allowed in.”
Growing up, his family had a German shepherd who “hated the mailman,” he said. “The dog would be bouncing his head off the window trying to get at him.”
The family finally moved the mailbox so the mailman — and the
dog — didn’t have to go through that every day.
“If that dog could see me in my mailman uniform, he’d probably roll over in his grave,” Roberts said.
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